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Breville Halo 5.5L air fryer review 2022
A relatively cheap air fryer that will fit in most kitchens, this Breville cooks quietly in the background. But some users have complained about faults.
- Quiet, with good capacity
- Functions not explicitly stated
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- £88 at Amazon
Details
| Price | £88 |
|---|---|
| Capacity (litres) | 5.5 |
| Functions | 5 |
| Functions include | Air fry, Grill, Roast, Bake, Sear/Saute |
| Cooking zones | 1 |
| Timer | Digital |
| Dishwasher-safe parts | |
| Transparency | |
| Rotating basket | |
| Convenience | ★★★★★ |
| Capacity and size | ★★★★★ |
| Stated functions | ★★★★★ |
| Overall Finder score | ★★★★★ |
Breville Halo 5.5L air fryer review
What can you cook in a Breville Halo 5.5L?
With a 5.5 litre capacity, the Breville Halo stands out as sizeable in the mid-price range for this type of fryer. Only the Instant Vortex with a 5.7 litre capacity can compete out of those we’ve reviewed.
You can cook 1 dish for a family of 4 – such as 1kg of chicken wings or 800g of veg to roast. You can also cook your standard chips, onion rings and burgers, but this machine can handle more than some other models such as the Ninja AF100, which is more expensive.
The divider that comes with the unit slips in perfectly and you can make wedges on one side and veggies on the other, albeit smaller portions.
Sunday roasts are a doddle – a 1.6kg chicken can fit into its basket easily. Cooking it is no fuss either – select the chicken preset and in an hour it should be ready for carving. It can even take a larger chicken – up to 2.2kg – and one great aspect of this machine is that the timer goes up to 90 minutes, so you can cook the bird all in one go. Other models like the Power XL and Instant Vortex only go up to 1 hour.
Don’t expect to make risotto or daal in the Halo. Rice and pulses aren’t suitable for the holed basket and neither are curries or stews. For these dishes, consider a multicooker like the Ninja Foodi OP450UK or Instant Pot Duo crisp.
How big is the Breville Halo 5.5L?
While this machine will take up a chunk of your counter, it’s not a monster. It’s 42cm tall and 39cm wide, which are both greater than the average air fryer based on our reviews, and bigger than the Instant Vortex, which has a similar capacity. However, at 34cm deep, it fits well on a standard counter.
At 7.5kg, the Halo is rather heavy and doesn’t have handles for easy lifting.
Is the Breville Halo 5.5L convenient to use?
Cooking in the Halo is pretty straightforward. You throw the food in, choose a preset and press start.
The preset icons (fries, chicken, veg, meat and fish) are easy to grasp, too.
But what happens if you want to cook something off-piste – like grilled shrimp or soda bread?
Breville states the Halo can bake, grill and roast (which it can) but these functions aren’t explicitly stated on the display, unlike Ninja models which have each cooking mode labelled clearly. Instead, you’ll have to use preset times and temperatures for fries, chicken, vegetables, steak and fish – or go down the manual route to bake a cake or grill a chop at a time and temperature you deem appropriate. This is made more inconvenient as there isn’t a recipe book included with the fryer, again unlike Ninja, or Philips with its NutriU app.
Another niggle is that the preset buttons disappear if you don’t press them immediately.
With basket air fryers, the manufacturers generally recommend shaking food halfway through. The same applies to this Breville. There is no halfway reminder to shake your food though, unlike the Instant Vortex. A transparent window into the den of chips would have helped.
What’s great is that the fryer basket and divider are dishwasher-safe. The divider itself is made scratch-proof with rubber tabs.
Breville Halo 5.5L customer reviews
This Breville model has received more than 1,300 reviews on Amazon (last checked February 2022), but around 10% give just a 1-star or 2-star rating. Many complain about having to change the machine due to faults.
However, the vast majority of reviews are positive. Many praise its simplicity and rapid cook times, and how easy it is to clean.
Pros and cons
Pros
- No need to preheat
- Quiet when cooking
- Good capacity
- Easy to clean
Cons
- Functions are not explicit
- Presets disappear
- Some negative reviews about faults
- No viewing window
Our verdict: Is Breville Halo 5.5L any good?
This Breville is quiet and unassuming but will do a good job cooking decent portions of food for a family of 4.
It can even take a whole chicken in the basket without you needing to flip it during cooking.
Cleaning up is easy and the presets are simple to understand.
The downside are the functions, which aren’t labelled anywhere on the machine or in the user manual. So you’ll have to use your nous or a recipe guide to know how long to grill your steak for. And the flak on Amazon is a slight concern.
Frequently asked questions
Finder air fryers scores
★★★★★ — Excellent
★★★★★ — Good
★★★★★ — Average
★★★★★ — Subpar
★★★★★ — Poor
We rate air fryers based on the aspects that matter to you. We explain what goes into our scores in our guide to ratings.
Review by
Reemul Balla
reemul.balla@finder.comReemul is a writer at Finder, specialising in product reviews and news. He's a qualified journalist having worked at local papers in the UK covering breaking news, food and restaurant reviews. He has an MA in Film from UCL and a BA in History and French from Durham University.
Expert review
Once you put your fries in the Breville Halo to crisp, you won’t even hear the machine running. It’s one of the quietest we’ve encountered – dare I say even soothing to listen to.
It’s hit the sweet spot with its 5.5 litres of space inside. Half a bag of chips can be cooked in 20 minutes or a kilo of wings in 35 minutes. So it’s great for a family of 4, and the rubber-padded divider is a great addition for separating ingredients, without scratching the basket.
It’s easy to clean, relatively cheap and presets are easy to use.
Unfortunately, about 1 in 10 Halo reviews on Amazon are negative, with users complaining they’d encountered faults.
